Goalie’s injury was net bonus
UM, World Cup player Perez used down time to study the game
Catalina Perez is still awed by what her life’s been like over the course of the past month and a half.
The soft-spoken redshirt sophomore, a goalkeeper for the Miami Hurricanes, was in net for her home country of Colombia during the Women’s World Cup, which ended Sunday. And weeks after her team was eliminated in the Round of16 after a 2-0 loss to the United States, Perez struggles to find the words to describe what it was like to play on the biggest stage in global women’s soccer.
“It was a dream come true,” said Perez in a telephone interview from Colombia. “I knew playing in the World Cup was something that could be there, but it didn’t always seem feasible. I was a kid that loved watching this sport, and you’d see the players in the World Cup and you didn’t think they were human. Then as I grew older and started playing with the national team, I thought this could actually happen.”
Though she was born in Colombia, Perez and her family moved to South Florida when she was 4 years old, and it was here that she learned to play soccer, spending time with the Team Boca club program before starring at St. Andrew’s in Boca Raton. She eventually earned a spot on Colombia’s U-20 team and trained with the Colombian senior women’s team ahead of the 2012 Olympics, experi-
ences that helped her prepare for the start of her Hurricanes career and had her believing that earning a spot on this year’s World Cup roster could be possible.
But in June 2014, Perez tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. She worried that the injury — which forced her to redshirt as a sophomore at Miami — would derail her World Cup hopes.
It was the opportunity to compete for a spot on the roster that fueled her rehabilitation process. While sidelined, she worked with Hurricanes coach MaryFrances Monroe to study the game in preparation for her return.
“I think I learned a lot, not just about goalkeeping but soccer in general,” Perez said. “Coach Monroe, all of the coaches at UM, really helped me with that. They made me look at the game from an analytical point of view. We analyzed specific goalkeeping situations that I go back to now.
“In a game, you have to think quickly. When I was injured, I could slow things down. It allowed me to work on the mental side of my game, and I feel now that I value my time out there a lot more.”
Added Monroe, “You may have some players that would give herself a pity party, but she became a better player just seeing the game from a different perspective.”
For Monroe, the U.S.-Colombia game proved to be a somewhat bittersweet affair. A former player at UCLA, Monroe played for U.S. coach Jill Ellis on several occasions, including in Los Angeles and as part of an Olympic Development Program in New York as a teenager.
She has remained close to Ellis, and said that while she was pulling for her former coach and some of her former teammates, she hoped Perez would get a save or two in the process. Perez got some chances, but she also got a red card in the loss to the U.S. after tackling U.S. forward Alex Morgan early in the second half.
That moment too, Perez said, provided a lesson that she’ll take from her experience in the World Cup as she prepares to return to the Hurricanes and compete with fellow redshirt sophomore Phallon Tullis-Joyce for minutes.
“The game pushes you to your limits,” Perez said. “You have to be ready to face the good and the bad. … I definitely have a lot more to learn about this process and myself, and I hope to take my new understanding of the game back to UM and share it with my teammates as we get ready for the ACC.”